


adsum

by bacchics



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Triumvirate Wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 13:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17581742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchics/pseuds/bacchics
Summary: Annabeth watched it all from their place, hidden behind a stretch of archways, tucked between the pillars and the foliage.





	adsum

The gardens were dark and rich in the night, lying vacant underneath a mulberry sky. Beyond them, the sea, even darker, crashed in sloping arches across the sand. Annabeth watched it all from their place, hidden behind a stretch of archways, tucked between the pillars and the foliage.

No one knew how heavy the emperor’s control was. Not really.

She drew her hands across his shoulders, gripping tighter. The indents that the armor from the games had left in his skin were still there, red and raw; she ran a thumb over them. A laugh echoed out into the night and their ministrations halted. When it died away, he rocked into her, a little faster and a little harder, and she buried a moan down his throat. The dress she had bunched up slipped free of her grasp and waterfalled down past her hips; with a frustrated groan, she pulled it back up.

They let her fight now and then, but it was never enough.

Percy dipped his head to press his lips against her neck, where he murmured words of love, as he always did. Heat rushed to her cheeks, as it always did, when she whispered the words back to him. The pain that slipped between her syllables made him falter, but her grip around his waist only tightened, urging him to continue. His hand slid from her thigh straight to her clit and the hard stone of the column scratched against her shoulder blades as she arched away from it. A small laugh passed between them, a brief recess, then lust overtook them again.

This is all that was left. Hushed conversation and hidden moments.

It kept on until his actions turned rhythmic and her body ran taught, everything climbing to a lovingly vicious peak. She bit a cry into his shoulder at the same time his palm hit the wall behind her, gripping the corner there to keep them steady. Their movements ceased and the world refocused. The cool breeze coming off the sea prickled her skin and the stars, freckles against the sky, glittered with a magnificence to great for this place. His lips, feather-light, ghosted against her cheek and her hand nestled against the back of his neck, fingers slipping into the loose curls he now had. They stared at one another—gray and green—and then, regretfully, untangled.

Tomorrow, he would return to the games and she, the meetings. The champion and the architect.

In silence, they dressed and fixed and righted themselves. When it was time to part, he pulled her into one final kiss. The tension in his shoulders was the same kind that made her eyebrows knit together. They stepped away from the other and it was done. There wouldn’t be another moment like this for many days; only a passing glance or the faint brush of a hand.

“Don’t leave me alone here,” Her voice was steady, smooth, quiet. The firelight from the arches made his eyes shine like two hard jewels. He sighed and spoke the next word like a prayer, one he had already said countless times before.

“Never.”

They walked off in different directions with no backward glance to be had and let the chirping of crickets and the flutter of vine leaves fill the space they had occupied only moments ago.

**Author's Note:**

> All kudos and comments are received with pleasure and gratitude.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
>  _Adsum_ is Latin for _I am here_ ; simply to mark one's presence.


End file.
